I knew Britney had high debut sales that week but didnt realiase they were that high. In the streaming era can you imagine how high those numbers would be.

6TH MARCH




It turned into a rather interesting week in the end with a record equaling 7 new entries in the top flight, but the headline remains that after 12 weeks of a different song at No 1 we finally get a single which holds the top spot and against the odds that’s Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time”. With sales cut by 50% to 231,000, still an extraordinary figure by most standards, total sales of the Spears track are already at 694,000 after just a fortnight- truly phenomenal.

It didn’t make the running at the start of the week however, instead that was Blur’s new single “Tender”. Written about Albarn’s break up with Elastica singer Justine Frischmann, the song serves as the first release from their “13” album due at the end of the month and sold a very impressive 176,542 copies in the process, that’s the highest tally for a No 2 track that went no higher since “Vindaloo” last summer, and among their own hits only “Country House” has ever sold more in 7 days. They can count themselves very unlucky indeed, it is however their 11th top 10 single in the last 8 years.

We’ve got Britney at No 1 and this week we get Whitney at No 3, the US superstar certainly has her mojo back after her last single “When You Believe” made No 4 just before Christmas and now follow up “It’s Not Right, But It’s Okay” goes one better after shifting a mighty 161,000 to make this week’s top 3 one of the best selling of the decade and indeed you’d have to go back to November 1995 to find a No 3 track to sell as much. Produced by Darkchild it has reactivated Houston’s new album “My Love Is Your Love” which has thus far sold poorly peaking at No 27 on release but this week surges 37-22 to reach a new peak after 15 weeks on release. The single has also benefited from remixes by Thunderpuss which have proved popular in clubs and at radio and of course a BRITS performance a few weeks ago.

We’re also due a second Stereophonics album this month and now “Performance & Cocktails” will contain two top 5 singles as “Just Looking” makes its appearance at No 4 (77,500). Lead single “The Bartender & The Thief” made it No 3 late last year but shows that great things are expected from the Welsh boys in 1999, and their new single features on the opening credits of the film "This Year's Love" which is in cinema's now.

Whilst “Believe” still lingers in the top 40 (it’s down 5 places at 35 in its 19th week and currently US #2) Cher is already on her next single “Strong Enough” which has more than a passing resemblance to “I Will Survive”. Selling 75,000 copies last week it enters at No 5 and gives Cher the first back to back top 5 singles of her long career as well as her 10th top 10 solo hit though she has three other singles that have made the grade in various guises.

Last year’s “My Favourite Game” saw the Cardigans score a major radio hit even if it failed to make the top 10, follow up “Erase/ Rewind” does however feel the benefit as it debuts at No 7 (66,000). That’s only the band’s second top flight hit after 1997’s “Lovefool” made No 2 and it also pushes the parent album “Gran Turismo” 16-10 to make the top 10 for the first time!

A slice of US folk next with Shawn Mullins and his hit “Lullaby” which was recently a No 7 hit in the states. It arrives at No 9 (56,000) here as a slight surprise, the singer cut his teeth on the US college circuit but has finally found international fame with this track.

Our last new entries constitutes a duet with the third largest age gap between them on a top 10 single, Elton John is 51 and LeAnn Rimes is just 17 beaten only by Frank Sinatra/ Bono and David Bowie/ Bing Crosby at 44 years each. “Written In The Stars” comes from the forthcoming musical “Aida” which is itself based on the opera of the same name by Verdi and is written by Tim Rice and Elton himself which is due in the West End sometime next year. The marketing strategy of releasing hit singles to promote a musical was of course used to great effect in the mid 80s for “Phantom Of The Opera” which had three top 10 singles before it opened, this single cruises in at No 10 (44,000) to become Elton’s 25th top 10 single.

Besides Britney the only survivors from the cull this week are The Corrs who fall 2-6 (71,000) and Lenny Kravitz though he slips 3-8 (59,000) in a week of very high sales all around.



With Comic Relief approaching again all eyes are now on this year’s single from Boyzone- can it dethrone Britney?

1- BABY ONE MORE TIME- Britney Spears (231,000)
2- TENDER- Blur (176,542)
3- IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT IT’S OKAY- Whitney Houston (161,000)
4- JUST LOOKING- Stereophonics (77,500)
5- STRONG ENOUGH- Cher (75,000)
6- RUNAWAY (REMIX)- The Corrs (71,000)
7- ERASE/ REWIND- Cardigans (66,000)
8- FLY AWAY- Lenny Kravitz (59,000)
9- LULLABY- Shawn Mullins (56,000)
10- WRITTEN IN THE STARS- Elton John & LeAnn Rimes (44,000)

The 4th time there have been 7 new entries in the top 10

Edited January 30Jan 30 by mrpopquiz

13TH MARCH



It can’t match the opening sales of either “Words” (232,000) or “No Matter What” (277,554) or the previous Comic Relief single from the Spice Girls (248,000) but Boyzone’s Charity single “When The Going Gets Tough” still does enough to depose Britney Spears with a sale of 213,000. A fifth chart topper for the Irish boys, you’ll know the song as the 1986 #1 hit for Billy Ocean which has been carefully replicated here, with the big day itself at the end of the week it would be a surprise if this only lasted 7 days but with Steps out today it isn’t a given. It is a fifth No1 for the charity too, and now only Take That and Spice Girls have more chart toppers in the 90s than Boyzone- little did we suspect back in 1994 that they would be quite as successful as they have!

Vengaboys are serving up another slice of Europop and we seem to love it as second single “We Like To Party” goes one spot higher than debut hit “Up And Down” by entering at No 3 (139,000). Their debut album “The Party Album” hits the shops in 3 weeks if you want to hear more from the Dutch quartet.

George Michael had an eventful 1998 to say the least, after the public outing in April he returned to the charts with “Outside” in October before seeing his greatest hits selection “Ladies & Gentleman” spend 8 weeks at No 1 over the festive period on its way to sales of 1.6 million so far. Second release from it is the song “As” a duet with Mary J Blige which is a Stevie Wonder track from his 1976 album “Songs In The Key Of Life” which was a never a single here but a #36 hit in the US. The Blige/ Michael version is being released globally with the exception of the US where the song has been pulled at the insistence of Blige’s record company who made the decision after the events of last April fearful that US audiences would not be keen on the association with Michael. Here at any rate it matters little as it debuts at No 4 (96,000)- that’s Blige’s third and biggest top 10 single here but Michael’s 19th top 10 solo hit and a 12th in a row, his figure of 13 in the 90s makes him the second most successful male soloist of the decade behind Michael Jackson.

While 19 top ten singles is impressive it isn’t a patch on 44 and that’s how many Madonna now has with new single “Nothing Really Matters” entering at No 7 (63,000). A fifth cut from the “Ray Of Light” album it comes with dance remixes by Club 69 which have been a hit on the dancefloor and help maintain the album’s current top 20 status despite already having sales of 1.1 million.

US rapper Ginuwine is back with his second album “100% Ginuwine” hoping he can score four top 20 hit singles again as he did with his debut era. He starts off well with “What’s So Different” equaling his best ever showing at No 10 (42,000), the track comes with a sample of The Monkees “Valleri” (#12, 1968) if you think it sounds familiar.

Britney Spears is toppled 1-2 but sells another 170,000 in the process and could reach the million as soon as next week at her current rate! Whitney Houston dips 3-5 (92,000) but her album finally makes the top 10, Blur hurtle 2-6 (77,000), Cher weakens 5-8 (47,000) and The Stereophonics trip 4-9 (43,000).

1- WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH- Boyzone (213,000)
2- BABY ONE MORE TIME- Britney Spears (170,000)
3- WE LIKE TO PARTY- Vengaboys (139,000)
4- AS- George Michael & Mary J Blige (96,000)
5- IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT IT’S OKAY- Whitney Houston (92,000)
6- TENDER- Blur (77,000)
7- NOTHING REALLY MATTERS- Madonna (63,000)
8- STRONG ENOUGH- Cher (47,000)
9- JUST LOOKING- Stereophonics (43,000)
10- WHAT’S SO DIFFERENT?- Ginuwine (42,000)

BBC4 showing the 5th March episode but the subtitles are for the 12th March episode !!

That top ten in the first episode 😮 so many classics! I pretty much like every song and love at least half of them.

Noticed the Vengaboys seemed to be missing a performer? Something I never noticed back in 99.

I could quite imagine the Vengabus as a slow ballad like Tender.

Tender is the best new entry here, I never knew it was such a big seller in the first week and that Whitney wasn’t far behind!

The Vengabus is cracking -,by far the best Vengaboys track and a pop classic. Also much love for the Cardigans.

I really like 'As', great soulful duet, my fave in that top 10, and 'It's Not Right But Its OK' and the Vengabus is good too!

Edited January 31Jan 31 by TheSnake

Erase/Rewind ❤️ By far my favourite new entry across the two shows. I remember buying it from Our Price on this week, it was probably the most 'indie' sounding single I'd bought up to that point (I was 11). Still obsessed with the track, it has the coolest production and vocal from Nina. I'm seeing them live for the first time in June and can't wait to see this one performed.

We Like To Party is great fun and it's the only track I think Denise has a lead vocal on? As they switched back to Kim from the next single onwards. Denise did a great job on that, she should have had more lead vocals.

For how huge a single ...Baby One More Time was, TOTP may as well have pretended it didn't exist. I know Britney couldn't perform due to injury but to only show a massively edited version of the video was a bit harsh. It feels wrong that the song only spent two weeks at No.1.

Some great new entries elsewhere - Lullaby I have always loved and 56,000 is huge sales for No.9, that week was big all round though, so high in the top three!

Strong Enough was very different to Believe but is still one I hear around a fair bit, a good disco number from Cher.

I've got no recollection of how the Elton/Leann song goes, although I remember it happened.

No plays for As or Nothing Really Matters, but I thought both of those were good tracks, As was so huge on the radio that year, it felt much bigger than No.4, but did have some high sales to get there.

When The Going Gets Tough is a bit of a standard cover that doesn't really change the original but it at least had a pulse unlike Boyzone's other covers and I remember the video with all of the guest comedians and Emmerdale stars very well.

The Jay contender for Eurovision at the end of the first show was awful, definitely the weakest of the four shown, like a boyband reject track. And the E-17 song on the second show wasn't much better. I really liked Each Time, but Betcha Can't Wait had no real redeeming features.

The Blur and Whitney tracks are both great, a shame they missed out on #1 as they could easily have made it in a different week. Tender selling so well was a surprise to me as it was really long and was quite a departure for Blur. Whitney's track marked the beginning of the best period in her career imo, all the singles from the album were great and the sass on this lead track was quite the force.

As for the rest... We Like To Party was Vengaboys' best track and one I bought, it was incredibly fun and at the time I loved the throwback to the type of dance we had in 1993ish. Nothing Really Matters was yet another strong single from Madonna's best album so great to see that give her yet another top 10... where as Cardigans got a second, although it was a step down from the nigh on perfect My Favourite Game for me - still decent though. Cher's was a decent enough follow up to Believe, but it wasn't something I was particularly mad on - I'd rather just have I Will Survive! The rest aren't that great, the Stereophonics one is particularly irritating for me.

20TH MARCH



Another week that didn’t quite go to a plan where Steps debuted at the top, instead (and somewhat understandably) Comic Relief last Friday gave the necessary impetus to Boyzone’s “When The Going Gets Tough” to soar past Steps and retain the top spot for a second week. They saw their sales only diminish by 7% in the end with another 197,500 copies fly into people’s homes giving the single gold status after just a fortnight but with the big day now past surely a third week is beyond it?

So onto Steps then and the single “Better Best Forgotten” the fifth single to be lifted from “Step One”. It burst into a midweek lead which it couldn’t sustain even though it sold an impressive 139,000 copies by Saturday. The group were of course involved in a recent BRITS controversy when it was claimed that what amounted to a conspiracy had resulted in them missing out on the award for best newcomers to Belle & Sebastian after a public vote, no matter as they can’t do much wrong commercially and this weekly figure has only ever been bettered in their personal discography by “One For Sorrow”’s 140,000 sold last year. To celebrate “Step One” passed the million mark this week, their last single “Tragedy/ Heartbeat” also remains top 20 having sold 1,063,000 to date, and indeed the release of this single was pushed back twice due to the ongoing success of the double A-side!

Talking of “One For Sorrow” it lost out on the top spot to the Manic Street Preachers “If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next” last September, and history repeated this week as the two went head to head. This time Steps made No 2 (again) whilst the new Manics single “You Stole The Sun From My Heart” makes its presence felt at No 5 (64,000) an improvement on the performance of last single “The Everlasting” (#11). The band have clearly benefited from performing the single at the BRITS as well as picking up two gongs for best British album and Best British group.

Another group releasing a third single from an album and seeing it perform much better than the second are R.E.M. Apparently an attempt to write something in the vein of the Beach Boys “At My Most Beautiful” is new at No 10 (36,000) a far better showing than “Lotus” managed when released back in December (#26) though of course that was in a crowded Christmas market. It’s only a 7th top 10 single of their long career but it means that “Up” is the first REM album to deliver two top 10 singles since “Monster” 5 years ago.

Britney Spears drops 2-3 (122,000) which gives sales of “Baby One More Time” to a total of 986,000- an incredible tally for a record still just a month old and in the face of her debut album arriving at No 8. Vengaboys bus 3-4 (79,000) and Whitney slips 5-6 (63,000) as her album reaches a new peak 10-5, George Michael and Mary J Blige are falling 4-7 (53,000). Like Whitney, Cher’s album surges 15-7 to reach a new peak but her new single “Strong Enough” manages to hold at No 8 (40,000), and Blur fall 6-9 (37,000) as their attention shifts to the album market with new album “13” out now.



This week sees a new B”Witched single released- can the girls make it four out of four?

1- WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH- Boyzone (197,500)
2- BETTER BEST FORGOTTEN- Steps (139,000)
3- BABY ONE MORE TIME- Britney Spears (122,000)
4- WE LIKE TO PARTY- Vengaboys (79,000)
5- YOU STOLE THE SUN FROM MY HEART- Manic Street Preachers (64,000)
6- IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT IT’S OKAY- Whitney Houston (63,000)
7- AS- George Michael / Mary J Blige (53,000)
8- STRONG ENOUGH- Cher (40,000)
9- TENDER- Blur (37,000)
10- AT MY MOST BEAUTIFUL- R.E.M (36,000)

Ahhh bring me back to this year

Didn’t know Britney shattered records just like that, especially for a debutante!!!

Venga Boys are still one of my faves of the late 90’s Eurodance era <3

27TH MARCH

Open the record books again, we have another entry! They may owe more to Boyzone’s sales collapsing then their own magnificent selling power but regardless B*Witched are the new UK No 1 today with “Blame It On The Weatherman”. In hitting the top it becomes the first instance where siblings replace each other (Boyzone contains Shayne Lynch and B*Witched contain his sisters Edele and Keavy) and for B*Witched it marks the first time that any band have debuted at No 1 with each of their first 4 singles, indeed only one act has ever hit the top with their first 4 releases, naturally that’s the Spice Girls. As you might expect though with the song being the forth release from their album it opened with a sale of just 90,000- their lowest tally to date and the third lowest of the year so far.

As noted Boyzone lost 56% week on week to end with 87,000 copies sold as they move 1-2 but only lost their crown at the death, even Britney Spears (who holds at No 3) sold 81,000 and wasn’t far off the pace of course “Baby One More Time” has now sold 1,067,000 to become our newest million seller, the 6th by a female soloist but at 17 she is by far the youngest artist ever to make the gold standard. It’s also the 25th biggest seller of the 90s to date.




Backed with his BRITS performance of “Let Me Entertain You”, Robbie Williams’ new single “Strong” slips straight in at No 4 (62,000). It’s Williams’ 8th top 10 single in under three years and there can be no doubt now that he is an established solo star, parent album “I’ve Been Expecting You” is already 6 x platinum after just 21 weeks charted equaling his debut.

New at No 8 (36,000) meanwhile is the second single from Kele Le Roc. “My Love” follows in the footsteps of debut “A Little Bit Of Lovin” (#8) and gained some notoriety this weekend when her performance on CD:UK was interrupted by a stage invasion to promote the band “The Womb” prompting a second take.

“Music To Watch Girls Go By” started out life as a jingle to a Pepsi ad way back in the mid 60s and became an instrumental hit in the US by Bob Crewe Generation. Lyrics were then written for it and it became a hit for Andy Williams a year later (#33) and now becomes a top 10 hit all over again at No 9 (33,000). The reason?- it’s used in the new fiat ad of course, it becomes his 9th top 10 single, the last one came 26 years ago!

Vengaboys prove consistent dipping yet another place 4-5 (60,000) while Steps are rather more transitory falling back 2-6 (47,000). Whitney Houston fades 6-7 (41,000) whilst Blur round off 9-10 (31,000) and claim the new No 1 album!


1- BLAME IT ON THE WEATHERMAN- B*Witched (90,000)
2- WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH- Boyzone (87,000)
3- BABY ONE MORE TIME- Britney Spears (81,000)
4- STRONG- Robbie Williams (62,000)
5- WE LIKE TO PARTY- Vengaboys (60,000)
6- BETTER BEST FORGOTTEN- Steps (47,000)
7- IT’S NOT RIGHT BUT IT’S OKAY- Whitney Houston (41,000)
8- MY LOVE- Kele Le Roc (36,000)
9- MUSIC TO WATCH GIRLS BY- Andy Williams (33,000)
10- TENDER- Blur (31,000)

Also Tina Cousins "Killin Time" remains incredible!

I think I definitely remember that Andy Williams song on the advert/ radio at the time now you mention it!

Strong does what it says, a strong, good song from Robbie Williams.

A good week if you're surname's Williams!

Edited Friday at 21:305 days by TheSnake

Those were impressive numbers for Steps with Better Best Forgotten being the 5th single from Step One.

Better Best Forgotten is cheesy but a good song. In terms of Forgotten songs in the chart there was also Too Good To Be Forgotten by Amazulu in the chart of 1986 which was just as cheesy.

Edited Saturday at 00:345 days by TheSnake

Love a bit of Better Best Forgotten. No idea it sold so much!

I think that’s the best B*witched song, what a record for them!

1999 marks the point where record sales start to reverse so it is really the last year of the expansion of the CD Single as a format. It is also deceptive to some degree as sales in the top 10 continue to look great but they start to really taper off lower down as the threshold for a top 40 hit and a top 75 single start to dip and overall sales start to dip. It will become more pronounced as the 00s dawn.